BEYOND RESISTANCE Colloquium – Re-imagining AMR: borders, boundaries and beyond the human
Edinburgh
10/01/2020
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Author
Iona Walker
The colloquium was held by the BEYOND RESISTANCE Network on the 10th of January 2020 at the University of Edinburgh, organised by Iona Walker of the Edinburgh Centre for Medical Anthropology (EdCMA) and generously supported by EdCMA and Edinburgh Infectious Diseases (EID). This year’s theme ‘Re-imagining AMR: borders, boundaries and beyond the human’ builds on the previous BEYOND RESISTANCE colloquium which identified this as a key area for interdisciplinary engagement.
A keynote from artist Dr Louise Mackenzie began the day reflecting on her work with e.coli as lively material, manifesting in works that explore themes of production, waste, the posthuman and nonhuman (Mackenzie, 2020). From there we reflected on the provocation in ‘pods’ before joining a group discussion. Key themes which emerged included: navigating vulnerability in patient experience, how AMR encourages us to reflect on our ecological obligations in light of climate emergency, the porous or leaky body, reimagining the institution for interdisciplinary work and finally our microbial imagination and what implications this has for medicine and politics. A full report is intended for publication in the coming months.
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